


A Little TLC for You and Me

by chucks_prophet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Construction Worker Dean, First Meetings, Flirting, Gardener Castiel, Gardens & Gardening, Humor, I think that's it - Freeform, Jimmy Feels, Language of Flowers, Light Angst, M/M, Mary Lives, Mostly Fluff, Teacher Castiel, This is Almost All Cutes, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Vegan Castiel, Vegetarians & Vegans, one reference to sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2016-09-18
Packaged: 2018-08-15 15:32:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8061850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chucks_prophet/pseuds/chucks_prophet
Summary: “Uh… no, it’s just a bigger project than I thought,” Dean replies, wiping his hands on his jeans. It’s a beautiful backyard. Spacious, green. And in the middle of the stone walkway is a great view of the owner’s globe ass as he, with slender, gloved hands, puts a yellow rose in place of a rosebud with the gentleness of a parent tucking in a small child come bedtime.“Guess that means we’ll be spending a lot of time together,” he says, turning around and facing Dean with a toothy smile.





	

Dean spews chunks of his Spicy Italian BLT when he gets the call from his supervisor.

“A _garden_.”

He can practically see Alastair’s crooked, wrinkled smile as he says, in his nasally and almost villainous tone, “Not everything’s roads and building’s, boy. The guy’s paying good money too.”

“For a garden,” Dean repeats.

“You afraid of worms or something?” Alastair chuckles. Even though it’s physically impossible, Dean can feel his germy slime seeping from his speaker into Dean’s. Dean covers his mouth to keep from gagging. “It’s a good payout. You use our equipment; you walk away with 25 percent.”

Dean can’t argue with that figure at fourteen dollars an hour. “What’s his address?”

***

“The _whole_ backyard?”

“Will that be a problem?”

Dean ogles the guy. Not because he’s attractive—though he’s certainly not lacking in that department. He has eyes blue enough to pick from the vine. The same goes for his cheekbones, which hang high on his face and are smattered with soil. His hair, too. And his chin. In fact, the only thing clean about him is his teeth, which unveil themselves with permission from his plush, pink lips.

“Uh… no, it’s just a bigger project than I thought,” Dean replies, wiping his hands on his jeans. It’s a beautiful backyard. Spacious, green. And in the middle of the stone walkway is a great view of the owner’s globe ass as he, with slender, gloved hands, puts a yellow rose in place of a rosebud with the gentleness of a parent tucking in a small child come bedtime.

“Guess that means we’ll be spending a lot of time together,” he says, turning around and facing Dean with a toothy smile.

In twelve years working on his feet, Dean’s ashamed to say that’s the point in his career he goes a little weak in the knees. “O-oh, okay, yeah. I can dig it—no pun intended. Uh, I only have enough supplies to make one bed. I’ll have to make a trip to Home Depot sometime in the middle of the week.”

“That won’t be a problem,” the gardener assures. “I can pay for any extra supplies, if need be.”

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary. Thank you, though.”

The man stands up and holds out his arm with a smile. “I look forward to working with you, Dean.”

Dean latches onto his hand with a congenial smile. “Thanks. You too, Castiel.”

***

Over the next week, through plenty of lifting and digging and increasing his lemonade intake enough to put him at risk for high blood pressure, Dean gets to know the elusive gardener who calls himself Castiel.

For one, Castiel is huge on the environment, which comes as little surprise. Every cup, every bowl, plate, and utensil in his house is Facebook friends with nature. He refuses to use incense sticks or anything in an aerosol can, so his house always smells like newly washed laundry and Burt’s Bees Bay Rum Aftershave. The latter is the first eco-friendly item he’s bought—on accident. The guy just really loves bees.

When he offers Dean tea with a scoop of honey he’d collected, Dean laughs. But then he takes a sip, and he falls in love in a way he hasn’t fallen in love since having front row seats to see Gunner Lawless and Beth Phoenix in the same rink. It’s sweet like processed honey, but warm and zesty at the same time.

Castiel opens up about his love life, how he’d been with a girl named Meg and had a child with after his first year as an elementary teacher. His name’s Clarence—a pet name Meg called Castiel after a drive-in showing of _It’s a Wonderful Life_ —and he’s eight years old. He has his mother’s face and his father’s personality. That can either be a good or bad thing, according to Meg.

“Really?” Dean says, setting his tea on the kitchen table. “You seem like a pretty nice guy.”

Castiel smiles a little, but it’s forged. “I appreciate that, but I became a nightmare to live with.”

Castiel doesn’t elaborate. Dean doesn’t ask him to.

Dean tells Castiel about his family, consisting of his mother and little brother, Sam. How they reconnected with their mother twenty years after the system adopted them, seeing Mary, who survived a house fire when they were kids, was in a coma, and their father vanished for a while.

Dean raised Sam, taught him everything from how to put on his socks to how condoms work. He even helped get him his first girlfriend when he was fifteen.

Sam broke the academic statistic when it came to foster kids, graduating valedictorian of his high school class. Dean barely squeezed past, getting his GED and finding work at a mom-and-pop bistro run by Benny, a former classmate and friend of his, after moving south for a change of scenery. He loved cooking, still does, but eleven an hour wasn’t cutting it, and eventually, he had to toss in the dishrag.

“Ah, so your hands breed more than one talent,” Castiel comments.

Dean seizes the opportunity to say, “Oh, my hands can do a _lotta_ good.”

This makes Castiel turn the same color as the salami in Dean’s homemade sandwich, to which Dean’s proud. He hasn’t made anyone blush since Cassie Robinson, back in junior year. He almost had something with Lisa Braeden, but that didn’t quite pan out. They were… what’s the expression? Two ships passing in the night?

He did have a fun night with that bartender from Quaker Valley last year, though… even though it cost him a shiny nickel from bouncing off his ass the next day.

“Can I get you anything else?” Castiel asks, pulling Dean out of his thoughts.

“Dude, between gardening and fixing me lunch, you’ve been going since I got here,” Dean replies. “Just keep sitting. That’s the best thing for both of us.”

Castiel shrugs. “Suit yourself, I was gonna get you another scoop of honey.” Dean’s mouth drops, to which Castiel smirks. “You want more honey, don’t you?”

“Sorry. You know what, I’ll get it—”

“No, it’s fine,” Castiel says, scooting out, “really, I can get it.”

That’s when they accidentally bump face-first into each other on the way to the kitchen. Castiel slips a little on the tile, causing him to reflexively grab onto Dean. Then they’re face-to-face with each other, limbs entangled.

Dean’s eyes are the first to stray south. Luckily, he catches himself before he can do anything stupid: “I think I’ll get the honey.”

Cas nods with a gulp. “Yeah, I think you should.”

When Dean returns to the table, it’s with an extra spoon rather than honey.

***

"Do you enjoy teaching or gardening more?" Dean asks the following week as the sun's humid hand wraps around his shoulders. The wind's picking up too.

Amazingly, the plant he started growing in the first complete plot, thanks to Castiel, is already blooming. It's astounding how something so small, so delicate, can weather it all. Strong roots go a long way.

Castiel laughs next to him, but doesn't pause watering a white violet as he says, "Well, for one, plants can't talk back to you. But my kids are good, even on their bad days. That's a hard decision. Especially since TLC is a prerequisite for both."

"Well, I'll tell you what, I couldn't do either."

"Why not?"

It's Dean's turn to laugh, though there's no humor behind it, "Are you kidding? I can barely stay in one place without going stir crazy."

"What about your mother?" Castiel asks. "Doesn't she miss you?"

"She's with my brother and his fiancée in California.” Dean recalls the last picture Sam sent them of himself, Jess, and their mom at the beach. Mom looked happy, happier than she’s been in a while.

"While I can’t speak for anyone," Castiel starts after a beat, warm fingers reaching out to pick off a speckle of Earth's manure stuck to Dean’s face, "I'd sure miss you if you moved."

Then Castiel smiles and Dean's heart is digging a tunnel to China, and Dean has to remember how to speak: "Uh, well… I mean, logically, because then there'd be no one to finish your garden."

It's a lame comment, but it absolutely lights up Cas's face.

Suddenly, the idea of settling down doesn’t sound so bad.

***

"Cas—mind if I call you Cas?"

"'Be who you are, and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter—'"

"'And those who matter don't mind'," Dean finishes, smirking as he sets the steel rod he's bent over on the green grass beneath his feet. It’s the last one he’ll have to put down, the _last_ frame to a picture out of _Better Homes & Gardens_, after two whole weeks, thank God. The stringy and stickiness of the grass brushing against his knuckles as he does so reminds him of the Kansas wheat fields he used to play hide and seek in. Pontiac is touristier. Cooler, but touristy. "I used to read my brother Dr. Seuss."

"Sam, right?”

"Yeapp. He's a spoiled brat. Goes to Stanford." Dean makes a point out of rolling his eyes so far up he can see a strand of walnut-brown hair breaking free from the rest of the clump.

Cas's lips peel back for a chuckle deeper than any hole Dean dig. Then they catch each other's eyes. Dean blushes, feeling a little winded the same way forest trees would feel a little winded after being swept up and spit out of a tsunami. That's Cas's eyes on his: the bluest and biggest tsunami he's ever seen.

Dean clears his throat as he picks up the rod again.

"Did you want to ask me something?"

"Hmm?" Dean says, turning around. "Oh. Yeah, no—I mean, I was just gonna ask how you got into gardening."

It’s a minute before Cas speaks again. Though his tone is level, his shoulders are slanted and slightly rigid: "My twin brother died in an automobile collision a few years back. Saying it was rough is mildly putting it. I lost Meg, filed for unemployment—and this was _after_ I became my niece Claire’s guardian until she was old enough, and had Clarence—I just sort of... lost myself.

"But then we buried Jimmy. And if you can believe it, that's where my closure started. There were these little green bulbs poking out from the ground. I'd visit every day until eventually, they turned into flowers. They were beautiful, too. All sorts of different colors. I asked around, but no one had any explanation as to how they started growing there. They just... decided to exist." A smile flickers across his face, no more brief than a wave running across a television screen. He looks up again and sniffs. "So you said you got into construction for the payout?”

Dean hesitates—answering, _and_ wrapping Cas in a hug. Sam's always been better at the whole empathy thing. "Yeah, that and the benefits. It just seemed like the most logical thing. Sam needed to go to college, and Dad needed a proper burial."

"I'm sorry for your loss," Cas says; though it's unlike most condolences people say to feel better about themselves. Cas is sincere. Cas has slept in the bed of dolor.

Dean nods. "Thanks. You too." Then Cas clears his throat to make room for a laugh. "What?"

"It just hit me: I'm a gardener, talking to a guy who destroys plants for a living."

Dean laughs too, despite himself, "If it makes you feel any better, I don't have anything against them. I mean, I hate _eating_ them, but when you think about it, that's murder, too."

"Damn," Cas says, "so I can't take you out to a vegan restaurant tonight."

Dean's hands slip, causing the rod to fall on his foot. It's painful, but nothing compared to mustering the courage to speak again without stammering: "I-uh, I mean, I could learn to like salad."

Cas chuckles, "It's alright; I'll be the first to admit the only flower I despise is cauliflower."

"Well duh, that's because cauliflower is a bad broccoli impressionist."

Cas's face that breaks into a blush, and Dean can't help but smile and think how some things take time to blossom, whereas other things... well, let's just say a little TLC and a lot of hands-on nurture go a long way.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

>  
> 
> Flowers and their meanings (from thelanguageofflowers.com):
> 
> ROSEBUD - Beauty and Youth; A Heart Innocent of Love
> 
> ROSE  Yellow - Joy, Friendship
> 
> VIOLET  White - Let's Take a Chance on Happiness


End file.
